HONOLULU (AP) — Fears of a devastating tsunami across the Pacific faded Wednesday after one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded struck off a sparsely populated Russian peninsula, but communities along South America’s Pacific coast carried out evacuations and closed beaches.
Warnings in the first hours after the 8.8 magnitude quake sent people fleeing to rooftops in Japan and forced tourists out of beachfront hotels in Hawaii, snarling island traffic. One death was reported in Japan, and in Russia, several people were hurt while rushing out of buildings, including a hospital patient who jumped from a window.
Millions of people were told to move away from the shore or seek high ground because they were potentially in the path of the tsunami waves, which struck seaside areas of Japan, Hawaii and the U.S. West Coast but did not appear to cause any major damage.
The dire warnings following the massive quake early Wednesday off Russia’s Kamchatka peninsula evoked memories of catastrophic damage caused by tsunamis this century.
In Japan, people flocked to evacuation centers, hilltop parks and rooftops in towns on the Pacific coast with fresh memories of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami that caused a nuclear disaster.
Cars jammed streets and highways in Honolulu, with traffic at a standstill even far from the sea.
“We’ve got water, we got some snacks … we’re going to stay elevated,” said Jimmy Markowski, whose family from Hot Springs, Arkansas, fled their Waikiki beach resort before evacuation orders were lifted. “This is our first tsunami warning ever. So this is all new to us.”
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem said the worst had passed. Later Wednesday, tsunami advisories for Hawaii, Alaska, Oregon and Washington state were canceled but remained for parts of northern California, where authorities warned to stay away from beaches and advised that dangerous currents should be expected through Thursday morning.
Experts say it’s challenging to know when to drop advisories, which signal the potential for strong currents, dangerous waves and flooding.
“It’s kind of hard to predict because this is such an impactful event and has created so many of these waves passing by,” said Dave Snider, tsunami warning coordinator for the National Tsunami Warning Center in Alaska.
Among the world’s strongest recorded quakes
The earthquake was the strongest recorded since the 9.1 magnitude earthquake off Japan in 2011 caused a massive tsunami and meltdowns at a nuclear power plant. Japan’s nuclear plants reported no abnormalities this time.
Wednesday’s quake occurred along the “Ring of Fire,” a series of seismic faults around the Pacific Ocean. It was centered offshore, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Kamchatka’s regional capital. Multiple aftershocks as strong as 6.9 magnitude followed.
Russia’s Oceanology Institute said tsunami waves of less than 6 meters (20 feet) were recorded near populated areas of the peninsula.
Lava flowed Wednesday from the Northern Hemisphere’s largest volcano in a remote area of Kamchatka, the Russian Academy of Sciences’ geophysical service said.
3 countries in South America lift tsunami warnings
In South America, three of the four countries with coastlines on the Pacific lifted their tsunami warnings.
Authorities in Colombia, Ecuador and Peru announced that tsunami alerts were removed. In Chile, the country with the largest Pacific coastline in South America, the government kept the alert along most of the coastline but lifted it in some areas where authorities said there was no longer a risk.
Chile’s Interior Minister Álvaro Elizalde said late Wednesday that evacuation orders remain in force in areas with alerts in place, and that schools will be closed again on Thursday.
He said a wave in one location measured 8.2 feet (2.5 meters), while in other areas they reached a height of 3.6 feet (1.1 meters).
Chile is highly vulnerable to earthquakes and tsunamis.
Hawaii downgrades to tsunami advisory
Authorities in Hawaii downgraded the state to a tsunami advisory, and evacuation orders on the Big Island and Oahu, the most populated island, were lifted.
“As you return home, still stay off the beach and stay out of the water,” said James Barros, administrator of the Hawaii Emergency Management Agency.
In northern California, tsunami waves of 3.6 feet (1.1 meters) were recorded in Crescent City, which has a history of tsunami disasters.
Even waves of just several feet high might pose a significant risk.
“It might only be 3 feet, but it’s a wall of water that’s 3 feet and spans hundreds of miles. Three feet of water can easily inundate inland and flood a couple blocks inland from the beach,” said Diego Melgar, director of Cascadia Region Earthquake Science Center at the University of Oregon.
Russian regions report limited damage
In Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, the quake damaged a kindergarten that was unoccupied.
A video released by a Russian media outlet showed doctors at a cancer clinic on Kamchatka holding a patient and clutching medical equipment as the quake rocked an operating room.
Authorities on the sparsely populated Kuril Islands reported several waves flooded the fishing port of Severo-Kurilsk, the main city on the islands, and cut power supplies to the area. The port’s mayor said no major damage was recorded.
Hot weather affected Japan’s evacuations
Japan reported one death, and other people were injured or suffered heat-related illnesses during its tsunami evacuations.
A woman in her 50s died after falling from a cliffside road while driving to an evacuation center in the Mie prefecture in central Japan, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said Thursday. Another 10 people, most of them in Hokkaido, were injured while heading to take shelter.
Separately, 11 others were taken to a hospital after developing symptoms of heat illness while taking shelter in the hot weather, with temperatures rising to around 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit) in some places in the country.
A tsunami of 2 feet (60 centimeters) was recorded in Hamanaka town in Hokkaido and Kuji port in Iwate, according to the Japan Meteorological Agency.
In Iwaki, a city in Fukushima prefecture, which was the epicenter of the 2011 tsunami and quake, residents gathered at a hilltop park after a community siren sounded and breakwater gates were closed.
Workers at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant, severely damaged in 2011, took shelter on higher ground while remotely monitoring operations, the operator said.
Hours later, Japan downgraded its tsunami alert but left an advisory in place along the Pacific coast.
